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Donald Kaos Trump

Brooks, who views Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban as poorly planned and poorly executed – his parents came to the US as kids – does not revile the new president in the kneejerk way most movie people do. “Trump doesn’t scare me,” he says. “He’s a song-and-dance man. Pence [the vice-president] and Bannon [Trump’s scheming henchman, a kind of Dick Cheney without the radiant, cherubic charm], those guys make me nervous.” He adds: “We are not talking about Athenian democracy here.”

When asked if he was ever tempted to make a “serious” film the way Allen did with Interiors and a few other exquisitely lugubrious affairs, Brooks mentions Gene Hackman’s unexpectedly hilarious turn as a daft, blind monk who befriends the hapless monster in Young Frankenstein. He pours hot soup into the monster’s lap, smashes his wine glass and sets his thumb on fire. When the hideous creature races off, bellowing in pain, Hackman cries out: “Where are you going? I was going to make espresso.” This may be the funniest line in all of Brooks’ oeuvre.

So why didn’t Hackman make more comedies? “I talked to Gene about that. He had a sensationally sly gift. But it’s all baggage. Once they (Hollywood) see what you can do, that’s all that they’ll let you do. I could produce The Elephant Man as part of Brooksfilms. But Mel Brooks couldn’t direct The Elephant Man. I had baggage.”

Brooks made staggering amounts of money from films with tiny budgets. But money was not always easy to raise, because his films were quirky, goofy. He recalls his duplicity when trying to bankroll Young Frankenstein, which earned $86.3m on a budget of $2.8m.

A new survey shows that the Americans trust President Donald Trump more than the news media. According to the recent findings by Emerson College, 49 percent of voters think that the Trump administration tells the truth. This is compared to 48 percent of those who trust the media.

Radio Sputnik discussed the issue with Joe Lauria, an author and independent veteran foreign-affairs journalist.

"I think it shows that the American voters are more sophisticated that they are given credit for. They find credible neither Trump, nor the media. And that's very disturbing, but I'm not surprised by this. I think there's been a downward trend in credibility of the media for some years," Lauria said.

According to him, the quality of US media reports has significantly decreased over the last decades. In contrast to 1960-80s, when media outlets laid focus on the investigative journalism and news reporting, the modern media industry has rather turned into "infotainment," with entertainment divisions taking over the news.

"In 1960-80s, within twenty minutes there was more news given on a TV report than is given in 24 hours today by CNN and the others," the journalist said. "TV news has gone into the toilet and that is all driven by profit."

In Lauria's opinion, many media corporations report in a way which is more beneficial for them. They often "leave important facts out," release one-sided information and "people just don't buy it anymore."

Commenting on the recent US media's criticism toward Trump and on how much time it will take US journalists to come to realization that Trump is president and they can do nothing about it, Lauria said:

"Well, I think they'll come to that realization, but I don't think they'll stop criticizing him, and nor should they. I think there is valid criticism in what Trump has done. The point is they didn't criticize Obama enough."

Joe Lauria has been a United Nations correspondent for 25 years. This included six and a half years as the Wall Street Journal correspondent based at U.N. Headquarters in New York. Mr. Lauria has covered ever major world crisis that has come before the U.N. over the past quarter century. Among those stories was the fraught diplomacy before the First Gulf War and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq; the 1990s wars that broke up Yugoslavia; the genocide in Rwanda; the destruction of Libya; the coup d'etat in Ukraine and resulting civil war; the devastating conflict in Syria; African coups and the U.N. response to earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Mr. Lauria has interviewed numerous presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and ambassadors and questioned many other leaders in press encounters, including Yassir Arafat, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Robert Mugabe, Jacques Chirac, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. He reported numerous exclusives and front- page U.N.-related stories for the WSJ.

is it a coincidence that DONALD trump and the actor playing Maxwell SMART share the same first name, DONALD? Follow the twisted mind of Gus the Old, who can spot parallels between Trump's and Smart's luck while both are totally out of understanding any reality nor where the smell of Limburger Cheese is coming from: the post office box on the street in which agent 44 resides. Welcome to reality TV at the White House.

As it is to many of us on the left, it is obvious to me that Trump is the most dangerous, unqualified, and reckless US President I have ever seen—much less imagined. And while it seems as if he will soon enough seize some opportunity to declare a national security disaster granting himself new unlimited powers, I know no reason to trust the CIA and other intelligence agencies any more than we trust Trump.

This attack on the Executive Branch is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. The most historically interesting element of this moment is the rarity of seeing the CIA operating, in real time, not in its usual historical role as a covert arm of the presidency (which Congressman Otis Pike argued was its primary function), but as the sort of rogue elephant that Senator Frank Church and others long ago claimed it is. As members of the Republic, no matter what momentary joy we might feel watching this rogue elephant canter towards our incompetent Commander and Chief, we must not ignore the danger this beast presents to one and all.

We should welcome calls to investigate Trump, Flynn, Bannon, Pence and others within the administration, but we need to also investigate and monitor the CIA for this latest in its long history of attempted coups.